


On the Trail

by GhostCwtch



Category: Political Animals
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drug Use, Gen, TJ is neither a happy nor a healthy camper, discussion of addiction and recovery, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 03:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1414168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostCwtch/pseuds/GhostCwtch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TJ is already dead, his family just hasn't noticed yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Trail

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Tiếng Việt available: [Trên lối mòn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6350875) by [beTum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beTum/pseuds/beTum)



> So I watched and then immediately re-watched Political Animals and it has been a very long time indeed since I've loved a character as much as I love TJ.

TJ dies at the dinner table. He smiles and goes on as best he can but he dies the second his mother says that she is planning on running for president again. He had hoped he was free back when his father finished his second term in office. The relief had been heady, he'd managed to cut back, even had a few weeks here and there of being clean. If his mother hadn't decided to run, TJ thought there was a chance that he'd have made it to a place where he could stay clean. Where he didn't need to take himself out of his head and life for as long as the high could last.

 

He would never tell his mother what her decision to run the first time had done to him, just like he won't tell her what she is doing to him now.

 

Instead he does exactly what he knows the "good son" he's always failing to be would do. He spills out his hollow words of support and has to excuse himself a few minutes later to have as quiet of a breakdown as he can manage in the bathroom. No one comments when he gets back about how long he was gone, or about how red his eyes are. They finish dinner and he cuts out before the shop talk of politics can really get started because if he tries to listen to how they're planning on destroying the tiny bit of peace that Mama being Secretary of State instead of President bought them? If he tries to listen to them plan out which states they're going to want extra polling in and the list of things that Dad is planning on finding out during their bogus fishing trip? He wouldn't be able to hold it in, not the way he needs to, He's never had Doug's poker face, always some little tell that gives him away and in their family that meant that TJ could keep no secrets and this was one time that he really needed to.

 

That night he goes home and calls one of his more regular hook ups to drink, smoke, and fuck his way into unconsciousness. In the morning, despite the hangover and how just generally dirty he feels, he still has a moment of hope that it was all some big mistake, that his mother isn't going to do this to him again. That she has realised that even though Dougie and the rest of them can handle that kind of spotlight, that TJ can't. 

 

It's not, and the reality is already more of a nightmare than he'd anticipated. Doug is a whirlwind of planning, even more than he normally is and Nana is  on her fourth or fifth martini when it's barely ten in the morning. He shakes his head and leans back in his chair staring into the kitchen where it's already started. The campaign hasn't even been announced yet and already their family is pulling apart at the seems. TJ is sure his dad will be around more and that is only going to add even more tension to the whole godawful situation. And there's nothing he can do. There is no way that he can stop this train wreck before it begins unless he wants to  break his mother. Not just her heart, but her spirit, because if she really knew what the last campaign had done to him, if she knew that he could barely remember vast swathes of time during that hellish period because he had to drug himself until he could hardly stand just to get through the day? That might actually succeed in breaking her where finding him nearly dead hadn't.

 

So he smiles and he tries harder to hide the fact that he's already done a couple bumps in the bathroom. He puts on his press face and no body says anything because in this family, all the important questions never get asked and Tj is dead, he's already dead so why should it matter anyway?


End file.
